Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to preventative maintenance of devices. Particularly, one embodiment relates to a technique for determining service intervals for medical devices.
In the field of medical equipment, such as imaging systems, patient monitors, and other types of diagnostic and monitoring equipment, regular maintenance is important for providing a high degree of reliability and operability. This equipment may require periodic servicing of components that may wear, be consumed, or become uncalibrated. It is common in the field of medical equipment servicing to provide for both “as needed” servicing (i.e. in response to service requests), and for regular servicing to ensure optimum performance and efficiency of equipment throughout medical institutions.
Current approaches for servicing medical equipment include regular service calls, typically based upon contractual arrangements between service providers and medical institutions. The service providers commonly schedule either on-site service visits or remote servicing, or both, on a regular timed basis. The intervals between such visits are generally determined in rather empirical fashions, however, and may vary widely between service providers, institutions, contracts, regions, and so forth, even for similar types of equipment or usage patterns.
While vital to the proper functioning of hospitals, the regular maintenance of their medical equipment is both time-consuming and costly. Under previous regulation of these institutions, regular maintenance checks of the equipment were required, regardless of whether a device actually needed repair. The regulatory environment has since changed, however, to provide hospitals greater flexibility in developing maintenance schedules. This freedom allows hospitals to extend the time between service visits for a number of devices, resulting in lower maintenance expenses and, thereby, a lower cost of ownership. However, hospitals must still produce maintenance plans that can be justified to patients and to the regulatory authorities.
There is, therefore, a need in the field of medical equipment servicing for an improved technique for determining service intervals for such equipment that would be more closely coupled to the actual need for servicing. There is a particular need for a technique that would permit service intervals to be based upon some criteria or criterion other than simple time intervals.